


tell the truth (but tell it slant)

by mswyrr



Series: Post-S1 D/s-Verse [4]
Category: Luke Cage (TV)
Genre: Bondage, Collars, Cunnilingus, Dom/sub, F/M, Kink Negotiation, Masturbation, Relationship Negotiation, Service Submission, and a dommy blowjob, because Mariah insisted lol
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-11-16
Updated: 2016-11-30
Packaged: 2018-08-31 07:33:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 12,741
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8569723
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mswyrr/pseuds/mswyrr
Summary: Better communication allows them both to push their limits.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Big thanks to notyourfuckingalatea and not-a-tardis for their work beta reading! They talked me through writing the most challenging parts of this fic and made it better every step of the way. It would not exist without them. :)

They were sitting across from each other at the kitchen table in the sunny yellow breakfast nook. It was a less formal setting than the dining table, but not as cozy as the couch. Neutral territory. Shades made coffee in the French press; Mariah brought papers and a notebook with items she wanted to discuss.

Before she could start, Shades asked: “What are the rules when we negotiate?”

“What do you mean?”

“The rest of the time – as long as I live here, I belong to you, obey you, defer to you.” Mariah was surprised to hear him sum it up like that. She had set it up without explaining it or even looking it straight in the eye herself. But he had figured it out. His insight into her thinking never ceased to amaze her. “Does that apply here?”

“I think,” she said, “that would defeat the purpose.”

“Then what are the rules?”

Mariah tapped her pen against the tablet with her notes. “Why don’t you act like you do when it’s a business meeting? We’re partners. Equals. I need your honest opinion.”

“Then we both have to be honest,” he said. “You don’t have to spill your guts, but…” he paused. “Have we started?” he asked, very seriously. It was sweet how careful he was about the rules.

Mariah inclined her head, fighting a smile. “Yes, we’ve started.”

“Okay,” he said. “You were upset last week. Both of us were at fault,” he said, and he really did seem like he was in a business meeting with her. He wasn’t disrespectful, but the overtone of obedience that colored all their interactions was replaced with frankness, “but we could have handled it better if you’d just been honest with me. If this,” he spread his hands to indicate the papers before them, “is meant to be for my benefit too, then I want to use it to avoid that.”

Mariah picked up her pen, wrote RULE 1: HONESTY in black ink on her yellow tablet and underlined it three times. She turned it around, held it up for him to see.

He nodded. “Okay. What do you want to talk about?”

“Open the folder,” Mariah said.

She had arranged the folder’s contents to get an honest reaction. On top there were several images printed out on photograph quality paper. The first was the most intense. It was of a muscular man suspended from the ceiling with leather cuffs. He was balanced on the balls of his feet, his body taut with strain. His expression was one of focused endurance holding together against the swell of some inexplicable, rapturous extreme.

There was the chance Shades would give her a flat “no” and think she was crazy besides. Given his blasé attitude about things before their argument last week, she liked to think a simple “no” was most likely. And she was prepared for that: there was a whole range of less extreme positions she could be perfectly happy with. There were three other photographs with examples in his folder.

Shades flipped the folder open casually and then his eyes widened. He sucked in a slow breath and blew it out softly, staring down at the image. “I can see why you were concerned,” he said calmly. He was always better at controlling his voice than his expression; Mariah guessed that was why he made wearing sunglasses his signature style. But he didn’t have them on now, and she could see that she had surprised him. It didn’t last long though: he narrowed his eyes, looked up at her. “Is this your opening bid,” he asked, “or something you really want?”

Mariah inclined her head. She was starting high so, when negotiated down, she would hopefully still be getting something she wanted. She wondered if he would catch that. “Both,” she admitted.

He sat back in his chair. “How long have you been thinking about this?” he asked. He was doing a good job putting on a poker face.  

“This pose specifically?” Mariah asked. She wasn’t going to lie, but she wasn’t going to divulge every thought either.

“Yes.”

“Several weeks now.”

He considered that. “What about this kind of thing in general?” he asked. He must have noticed her hedge.

The question was phrased poorly, too vague to pin her down. She could pretend she didn’t know what he meant, or use the room to construct a deception that wasn’t really a lie. That would violate the trust she was trying to build here, though. He was right; this wouldn’t benefit either of them without honesty.

“Several months,” she admitted. The general idea had been around for almost as long as she had felt attracted to him, caught up in those hundreds of strange thoughts that a person simply ignored every day. But she had learned that it could be a virtue in this relationship to bring things she kept hidden deep up to the light. This conversation was where she would find the limits of that.

He frowned. “I would have understood why you got upset, if I knew this was on your mind. Why didn’t you say something?”

“I’m not in the habit of verbalizing every crazy impulse.” She didn’t want him to see how much she wanted this. It was immaterial and potentially risky, since he was too easily influenced by pleasing her. It was strange to be in a negotiation with someone who might not look out for their own interest well enough if she revealed too much, but the basics remained the same. She just had to keep neutral and watch carefully.

“It’s not crazy,” he said. “Dangerous, yes…”

Perhaps she _should_ have given him this a while ago; she was relieved to hear him finally taking her concerns seriously. “So you can admit that it’s dangerous.” That made a nice change from their argument.

“Of course I can – like I said, our conversation would have gone a lot smoother if I’d known you were thinking about something like _this_.” He shrugged. “But, yeah. I can do it.”

“Okay,” Mariah said, feeling shaken. It really had been an opening bid. She wanted it; of course she wanted it. But the entire point of having negotiations was so he could freely push back against the extremes that fantasy and inexperience might lead her to. She needed him to say no to something, anything, just so she knew where to stop. She’d kept these feelings locked down tight for sixty-three years – bringing her demons out and taming them for someone would be a lot less terrifying if she had some rules for herself. “I appreciate that and I want to discuss it further, but first…” she tried to come up with some way to ask that wasn’t too revealing, and then her eyes caught sight of the yellow notepad in front of her, the dark black “HONESTY” in her own handwriting. “Could you please,” she said, using the word because they were equals right now, “tell me _one thing_ you don’t want me to do? Anything.”

His eyebrows shot up. “Why?” He sounded, of all things, suspicious.

Even honesty didn’t require that she go into excruciating detail, so she said: “I would find it reassuring to work within limits.”

He considered that. “There are people who would use this as an opportunity to find out what I hate just so they could make me take it,” he said, very matter-of-factly.

Mariah wondered if something like that had happened before, but didn’t ask. “I’m not that sick,” she said, disgusted at the very thought. She’d screw over plenty of people, but not _her_ people. For all that she'd scared herself recently, she knew that much. She didn’t want to hurt the few people she really had in this life. “I can tell you that until I’m blue in the face, but you have no way of knowing for sure until you trust me.”

There was a hunted look in his eyes, like she was asking him to jump out of a plane and trust that she’d packed his parachute correctly.

“I _can_ live without this,” she said, pointing to the photograph. “We can shred all of this and I can just stick to the stuff we’ve been doing.” His expression eased and she continued, because it needed to be said. “I’m happy with what we have. I’m not going to kick you out for not giving me more.”

He nodded slowly. “Okay,” he said. For a moment, she thought he meant they should give up on this. But then he said, “Guns and knives,” and she felt something in her heart warm. He was willing to trust her. “I don’t want them to be part of this – they’re _tools_ , not toys,” he said, and there was an edge of anger in his voice, not directed at her.

Mariah turned to a new page, wrote HARD LIMITS and put both items under it. Turned the tablet to show him.

He looked at it and then smiled, shook his head. “It’s like the constitutional convention of kink in here.”

Mariah laughed.

“Why don’t you tell me something _you_ don’t want?” he asked.

She wondered why he needed to know, but decided to go with it. It was part of playing by the honesty rule. “I don’t want to play at slavery,” she said. “Ever.” She couldn’t quite keep the disgust out of her voice. “It’s absurd.”

His eyes darted away and then back. “Okay,” he said.

Mariah got the distinct impression he was offended by her virulence on this point. “Have you ever done that?”

“Do you really need to hear me say it?” he asked, annoyance creeping into his voice. “You know how common it is.”

Mariah spread her hands. “I’m not going to browbeat you over it. I’m curious.”

“Okay,” he said. “It wasn’t my idea, but yeah.”

“Did you like it?”

“Yes.” He looked guilty. “I thought of it as more of a Greco-Roman thing, though,” he explained. “Most people do. I thought you would have noticed that?”

“Sure,” she said, “Most people aren’t acting out plantation fantasies. But the fact that I’m the great-granddaughter of people who were enslaved is just part of my...” she thought of a nicer word than _disgust_ , “annoyance with it.”

He leaned back, folded his hands in his lap. “Okay, now _I’m_ curious – what else bothers you about it?”

Mariah sighed. She had done a lot of thinking about this in the past few months. It was something she had to work out if she was going to do this and look herself in the mirror. “I don’t have a simple answer to that. Do you really want to know?”

“I’ve got time,” he said.

“All right," Mariah said. "Slavery is about coercion. Force is all slave-owners have and the moment,” she snapped her fingers, “that weakens, people will reach for freedom.” She leaned forward. “Now, what do I have?” She raked her eyes over him very deliberately. “I have a… strong, intelligent, capable human being who _wants_ to obey me.” There was a look of such naked shock on his face that she thought she ought to compliment him more often. “And I can push that so far you’ll let me break the Geneva Convention on your ass—“ she said, pushing the photo toward him with two fingers. “Why would I want to pretend like I have to _force_ you to do anything? What I have is better than that,“ she said and smiled, let her satisfaction in that knowledge show. It was a wonderful thing. Every day it surprised her anew to have something so precious.

She had never seen him look dumbstruck before. His lips were parted and he was staring at her like she was a natural wonder, something terrifying and beautiful. It felt really good, but she decided to break the tension, so she said: “That just about answer your question?”

He laughed, reached out for her tablet, wrote something on it, and then turned it back for her to read. Mariah glanced down: there was a large “A+” written on the upper right corner of the page where she’d written “RULE 1: HONESTY.”

Mariah chuckled. “So glad you approve.”

“You’ve been thinking about the Geneva Convention?” he asked, looking bemused.

“Post-9/11 I gave speeches about the government’s use of torture. How could I want something that, legally speaking, _qualifies_ as torture without thinking about it?”

“That’s not what you want,” he said, sweetly, with such certainty in his voice. “You want…” he couldn’t suppress his smile as he repeated her words back to her, “a, ah, strong, intelligent, _capable_ person to play with.” His eyes were _dancing_ that had made him so happy.

“Feeling pretty good about yourself, huh?” she asked, not suppressing her own smile. It was its own kind of power, being able to make someone happy just by telling them something nice she honestly thought.

“I’ve discovered that I like negotiations,” he said, nodding firmly. “In fact, I think I could negotiate all day,” he added, drawing out the word ‘all’ so it sounded lewd.

Mariah laughed again, her shoulders shaking. She felt ridiculous and happy. It was absurd to act like two giggly teenagers over the topic of consensual torture, but real joy in somebody else didn’t come along every day. So what if it was weird?

“You might be able to do this all day, but I’m not as fond of the idea. I’d like to switch to practicalities, unless there’s something else you’d like to discuss?”

He shook his head.

“Okay,” she tapped her pen against the photograph. “Do you have any ideas for doing this safely?”

“Yeah,” he said. “I’ve actually done it before.” Off her look he clarified: “For work. The goal there wasn’t to make it safe…” he looked amused at the very thought, “but I can reverse engineer from that. First of all,” he turned the image around, pointed out the chains, “we’re going to need thicker ones than that, something I can get a grip on to take some pressure off my legs.”

“Good,” Mariah said. “Why don’t you look through the folder and make notes for me? We can discuss them next week.”

“Okay,” he said. He stared at her a long beat. “Are we done?” he asked.

“Yes.”

He seemed to deflate into his seat, nodding. She hadn’t realized how tense he’d been, even when he was joking around with her, until that moment. Very deliberately, she set her pen down, stood and walked over to him.

He looked tired, though not unhappy. Mariah felt her heart tighten; she’d thrown a lot at him today. It occurred to her that all this legalistic bullshit was more of a comfort to her than him. It was how she thought and she had, until recently, never been on the wrong side of the law. Procedures and rules were safety to her. She stepped closer, stroked her hand over his close-cropped hair. Occasionally she thought about telling him to grow it out so she could grab a handful when she wanted, but she always stopped herself. There was something about the soft bristle of his hair, the warm skin of his head, and the delicate bone structure she could trace with her fingertips, that she liked. Men thought it made them look tough, and it did from the right distance. But up close it he seemed vulnerable, exposed.

“This was good,” she said, sincerely. Some warm tug in her heart compelled her to take it a step further. She said: “You did good, baby.”

His eyes softened and his lips parted, like she’d just given him something precious. Then, before she could react, he put his arms around her waist and pulled her in tight, resting his head against her stomach. His arms were like steel around her. There was something so good about knowing that she couldn’t get away unless he let her, but that he would _always_ let her. She hoped that the negotiations would make him feel like that too. There were things she wanted to do to him where he wouldn’t be able to get get away, but he needed to know that she would _always_ let him.

There was something special here to explore, the way kind words could move him. It didn’t have anything to do with pain, but it wasn’t entirely normal either. She experimented with it, stroking his head. “You did real good, baby,” she repeated.

His arms tightened and she swore he nuzzled her stomach. “Mariah,” he said, “please, let me take care of you?” His mouth moved lower on her belly, just above her cunt. He wouldn’t presume to go there without permission. He was offering, though.

If she wanted, he’d go to his knees right there in the breakfast nook. Mariah cupped the vulnerable, warm skin of his head and sighed in pleasure. That was a good idea. For later, though: she liked a nice soft bed for her Saturday morning sex. “Come on upstairs then,” she said, leading him by the hand away from the table.

\--

The next time they met, Shades was the one with all the documents. He had made notes on everything in the folder she gave him plus added several pages of specs for a pulley based device intended to put him in the stress position she was interested in. It included a very well-drawn sketch using her basement’s measurements. He came around to her side of the table to show her, pointing out where everything should go.

He was eager about the whole thing, like a car nut talking about souping up their ride. That was a nice thought, to consider this a strange but harmless couples’ hobby, like riding motorcycles or bungee jumping.

Her basement already had a small bathroom with a toilet and sink in addition to heavy beams that would apparently be perfect for securing the pulley system. Mariah said that a bed should be added, and he agreed. Neither of them suggested adding new flooring or moving out the usual things found in a basement, such as the washing machine and dryer; all of that added verisimilitude to the fantasy.

“I can get you the name of my handyman,” Mariah offered. “For the installation.”

“I’d rather do it,” he said.

“Why?”

“I can do it safely. That’s what matters, right? Besides,” he said, looking up from the papers, “people talk.”

Mariah her heart warmed at that. He was trying to protect her reputation from wagging tongues. She reached out and smoothed her palm over the strong, warm lines of his back through his black dress shirt.

“This is impressive,” she said. “Especially the sketch.” He was untrained but he had a raw talent for perspective.

He stilled. With her hand touching his back, she could feel that even his breathing paused as her words sank in. She had been playing with that since last week, exploring the way her honest compliments could overwhelm him. She was no stranger to the power of words, but the intensity of his reaction was something new. It felt like having a magic spell she could cast any time she liked.

“Thanks,” he said, once he’d collected himself. Then he cut her a sly glance. “I do have a vested interested in getting this right.”

“Mm,” Mariah said, and then something occurred as she looked out over the breakfast nook table. “You know,” she said, barely suppressing a smile, “I believe I’ve found the way to build a better mousetrap.”

He blinked at her, confused at the sudden change of topic. “…You have?”

“Uh-huh,” she spread her hands over the papers before them, gave him a saucy look, “consult the mouse.”

He laughed.

“Of course,” she continued in her best bedroom voice, her hand drawing leisurely circles against his back, “I’d have to find a very _depraved_ little mouse…”

“Who you calling little?” he tossed back, smirking. “But since we’re on the topic of depravity,” he licked his lips, “I can, uh,” he tapped his pen against the sketch, “have this set up by next week.”

Mariah sucked in a breath. That was much faster than she expected. It was one thing to talk about this crazy shit. She had become comfortable with that; their negotiations had made her comfortable. But it was a vague idea, somewhere in the future. Now it was next week.

She noticed her hand had stilled on his back when he turned to touch her shoulder in comfort. “There’s no rush,” he said.

“Of course not,” she said. She would never tolerate that. Nor would he do that to her. “But you’re feeling eager, aren’t you?” she asked. She didn’t quite understand what it was like to feel eager for someone to do that to you.

“It’s been on my mind,” he admitted.

“Can you tell me what it’s like for you?” She realized how imprecise the question was as soon as she asked, clarified: “Would you really enjoy this?”

He seemed to give that serious consideration. He took a short breath, ran his tongue over his bottom lip. “Look, Mariah,” he said, “I think you need to expand your definition of ‘enjoy.’”

Mariah considered that. “Do you mean you have a higher pain threshold than average?”

“I do,” he said, “but it’s more than that.”

“It would help,” she said, “if you could explain it to me.”

His hand squeezed her shoulder gently. “Okay,” he said, his brow furrowed as he thought it over. “You graduated _summa cum laude_ , right?”

“In undergrad, yes,” she said, then felt the need to add: “I fell to _magna cum laude_ in Law School.”

Shades smiled. “You ‘fell’ to a spot most of your classmates would have given their left nut for…” he said, looking at her like she was adorable. It was strange, to be _adorable_ to someone. “You’re amazing.”

Mariah felt the corner of her lips quirk. “Thank you. But how does this relate?”

“Yeah, so – _summa_ or _magna_ , that took work. You’re brilliant, but there must have been… sleepless nights, endurance, commitment. You _suffered_ for it.”

“I did.” Not the least because she’d learned as a girl that getting good grades was one of the few things she could do to keep herself safe. Somewhere in the back of her mind it always felt like her life was on the line, every single time she got a grade back. That feeling didn’t come from a good place, but she used it. There was nothing she wouldn’t use to drive herself ever higher.

He nodded. “But you enjoyed it too, didn’t you? You pushed yourself and you achieved. You felt _proud_.”

She was starting to see where he was going with this. She’d read people talk about endorphins from strenuous kink like athletes talking about a race. “Is it like running a marathon, then?” she asked.

“It’s better,” he said.

All the reading she’d done had given her information, but not _understanding_. She was puzzled and fascinated by the things people on his side of this said they experienced. They talked about endorphins and being able to achieve extreme feelings of euphoria. It was couched in strange neologisms like “sub space” that didn’t really help her. The only thing she knew is that it was nothing like anything she had experienced nor did she think she was capable of it, even if she wanted to. Which she very much did not: if she wanted that kind of feeling, alcohol and drugs were preferable to putting herself in someone’s power, even someone she trusted. Jesus, she didn’t even like to lose control with those things, let alone under the hands of some asshole who wanted to tie her up.

She was perfectly aware of the hypocrisy of those thoughts given that she was herself ‘some asshole’ who wanted to tie people up. And unashamed of it. She was glad that he got enough out of this to make it worth the risk. It was her extreme good fortune that he did. Without him in her life she would have to continue keeping all the pleasure these feelings gave her tightly locked away. And for her part she was doing everything she could to do right by him. That was all she could do.

“How is it better?” she asked. “I’ve been doing research. People talk about going to a deep, euphoric place… is that something you can experience?”

He nodded slowly. “Yes.”

“Have I managed that?”

“You’ve taken me pretty deep,” he said, and the phrasing of his answer tipped her off.

Mariah tilted her head. “But not all the way?” she asked, to confirm.

He shook his head slowly, watching her reaction.

Mariah touched his sketch. “Could this do it?” Learning that there were extremes he could experience that she clearly had not taken him increased her own eagerness. What would it be like, to do that to someone she cared about so much?

“A lot of things could do it,” he said. “It’s more about how you do it than what you’re doing. The--” his eyes moved over her face as he considered the next word, “command you exert.”

“Okay. What has gotten you closest so far?”

“When you order me to strip,” he said with certainty. Mariah noted that he hadn’t even had to think about that. It was obvious to him.

Interesting. She’d done that a couple times. It was very enjoyable from her side. Having some idea of what it was doing to him would make it even more fun in the future. It gave her important insight into how to evoke those feelings in him in other ways too. But it worried her. “Is it safe?” she asked.

He looked confused. “How do you mean?”

Mariah shrugged. “Is it like being intoxicated? Does it compromise your judgment? Will it make it harder for you to tell me if something goes wrong?”

“No… I can take a lot while I’m there and it is intoxicating. Everything feels good. But I can come out of it very quickly if something goes wrong.” He made a face. “I once punched a guy for touching me while I was like that -- not my dom,” he clarified, “some asshole who thought he could join the fun without asking permission.”

“Well, that’s… reassuring,” Mariah said. Or something like it. “Thank you,” she said. “This is helpful.”

He inclined his head, a grin at the corner of his mouth. “I’m here for all your mousetrap building needs.”

Mariah smiled back. “You know I like to take my time with these things,” she said. She didn’t want to get his his hopes up that she would suddenly know how to hit all his buttons just right after one conversation.

“I do,” he said. “And I appreciate it.”

“Good,” she said. “Then I’ll work on it. Don’t worry about having this,” she tapped the sketch, “come out of nowhere --  I’ll give you advance warning. I want to make sure you’re feeling well when we try it.”

“Fair enough,” he said. “Is this all you wanted to talk about today?”

“Yes.” Mariah slowly stroked her hand down to his tight little ass and gave it as squeeze while maintaining eye contact. “I’ve had enough of paperwork for today, haven’t you?”

He gave her an innocent look. “But, Mariah, what else is there?”

Mariah glared at him. “Don’t play coy with me,” she said, and gave his ass a slap, “or I’ll settle in with a good book and order you to clean the house all day.”

She was surprised at the intensity of his reaction; he looked very interested in that idea before he smoothed out his expression. “Marta would certainly appreciate that,” he said, noncommittal, referring to her housekeeper.

Interesting. Mariah filed that away with his reaction to compliments and stood, pulling him down into a kiss, her hands on either side of his face. She brushed his bottom lip with her tongue and tightened her grip; he opened for her, leaning in. He tasted dark and delicious, like the Sumatran coffee blend they’d been drinking. They had a rhythm now, push and pull. He settled in for the ride just the way she liked to start, his hands resting on her hips and lightly brushing up to cup her breasts. Sometimes she wanted him to be more active, rough even, but the default was him opening for her, following and supporting her as she took what she wanted. It thrilled her right down to her toes to feel his strong hands softly cup her breasts knowing she could, with a word, order him to push her onto the table and fuck her as rough as she liked. It was like having a whole palette of colors to play with and all the time in the world to do it.

Rough sex, like cunnilingus, was not a morning breakfast nook activity in her book, however. For all that she was a pervert now, she had some old fashioned notions about the proper time for filthy kitchen sex. “Come on,” she said, again leading him upstairs.

-

On Sunday evening Mariah curled up with some bedtime reading. Namely, the file folder full of pages Shades had carefully annotated in his small, neat printing. There was something cramped and awkward about how precise it was, the pencil pressed down hard into the paper. She noticed, with satisfaction, that he’d kept the images she included. He must have found them as stimulating as she did.

The documents weren’t enthralling. They were full of all the things she considered too boring to waste conversation on. There were the basics: allergy info, any old injuries she should be aware of. Plus a range of other questions. He was rather terse. Under the paragraph where she described her reasons for preferring the stoplight system to a single safeword he just wrote “OK.” In another section, where she asked if he was interested in using titles, he wrote, “If you want.” She nearly rolled her eyes at his scintillating responses. It was a strange contrast; he was so forthcoming in their conversations. But then she saw, off to the side, in smaller print, “I consider your name a title.”

Mariah felt the inexplicable urge to tenderly trace her fingertips over the words. His admiration was so nakedly sincere that there were still times it could catch her off guard. She had never liked surprises, and yet she found that she loved this kind.

There wasn’t much else interesting on that page, so she flipped back to the question where she asked him to tell her anything he’d like to request. She wasn’t making any promises that she’d do what he wanted, but she was willing to consider it. She could always use some fresh ideas to mix things up. Besides, she regularly brought him into the seamy contents of her mind, surely he could stand to show her a couple of his. He’d written: caning, fetters, collaring, special rules.

Mariah was impressed. Considering his terse replies and how hard she'd had to work to get him to admit to something he _didn’t_ want, he was practically chatty about things he was interested in. She pulled her laptop over and Googled the terms to get some basic info on them. They all looked promising; she saved several sites to her special bookmark folder.

This might help her with the problem she faced: she wanted to explore how he she could make him feel before she started in on the consensual torture. It was a simple matter of good process. She needed to know what was between where they were and where they were going before hanging him up by the wrists in her basement. It was also a matter of pride. She had the suspicion that he was right: she could get him to "sub space" _without_ needing to use pain. Recent discoveries around compliments and the prospect of being given onerous tasks seemed full of potential. Particularly if she combined them with one or two of the guaranteed list of kinks he’d just so kindly given her.

Mariah pulled out a fresh sheet of paper and started brainstorming combinations on it, absorbed and delighted by the prospects unfolding as she linked concepts, added keywords and notes. Fetters worked well with collaring, and “special rules” could work with her idea about giving him tasks. They had to be challenging enough but not too much; she needed to be able to honestly compliment him and watch him freeze like a rabbit. She smiled and thought again of the idea of mixing colors, having a whole palette to play with.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks again to not-a-tardis and notyourfuckingalatea - they've been amazing and this fic would not exist without them.

Once she got her plans together, Mariah went for an online shopping spree. There were a lot of options, and she enjoyed finding the most tasteful ones available. This hobby of theirs was definitely not cheap; as she finalized her purchases she was glad she sat atop a lucrative criminal empire.

When the boxes started arriving, Shades looked intrigued. Then she told him the basement was off limits; she enjoyed the way he looked very turned on all of the sudden. This was part of why she didn’t like to rush into things. She loved building anticipation in both of them. For her, she got to open packages, stroke her hands over the various items, and arrange them perfectly, imagining how it would all play out. For him, it meant being kept in the dark with just enough information for his imagination to run wild.

A few weeks later, she had everything she needed. The scene she had planned had a long time frame, so she chose Saturday night to start. She called him down to the couch and brought out the collar she’d bought. It was the best one she could find: dark brown leather with tasteful metal accents. When she first looked into how people used collars, there was a lot about playing at slavery that she skipped right over. People also used it to claim someone as a pet, which had promise. Some of the pet stuff was infantilizing or humiliating. She didn’t want that. Others treated their pets with pride, like a handsome guard dog. She could happily play at that kind of ownership. It resonated with what they really had, rather than contradicting it. The collar she bought was intended to express that kind of proud ownership.

It didn’t have a lock. She had considered one, but decided against it, as well as dismissing restraints for this portion of events. He would do what she said because she said it. That was the point. He didn’t need to be forced. Bondage—including something to touch on his interest in fetters—was part of her plans, and she was looking forward to it. But she wanted them to spend some time in the awareness of his obedience to her without any overtone of force first. She wanted to see if her idea about how to approach this worked as well for him as it did for her.

She the collar it on the coffee table, next to a small card she had written earlier, and looked at him. He was staring at it like a starving man gazing in a bakery window.

“Would you like to wear that?” she asked. “It comes with special restrictions.”

He opened his mouth and damn near said “yes” impetuously before his brain caught up. Then he closed his mouth, gave her a searching look. “Could you please explain the restrictions first?” he asked.

Mariah nodded, pleased. She would have been disappointed if he jumped in like a fool. “Of course,” she said. She picked up the card, handed it to him. “Read and memorize this,” she said.

The contents were a neat list outlining the four special rules for when he was collared. In addition to his usual obedience, he wasn’t allowed to speak without being asked a direct question, unless he needed to safeword. He could stand, kneel, or lie on the floor but wasn’t allowed to sit or come up on the furniture unless she gave him a direct order. He wasn’t allowed to come or touch himself without her permission either. And, finally, he was only allowed food or water if she gave it to him.

She watched him read the card several times. At first he looked overwhelmed, but then he quickly focused, eyes narrowing. Likely memorizing the contents as instructed. After about five minutes she put out her hand to take the card back. He passed to it to her, the finest tremor in his fingers.

Mariah set the card back down on the table, picked up the collar, stroking her hands over the smooth, supple material. She made sure to get one that wouldn’t mark his neck. “If I let you wear this, you will have to obey those rules. If you break one, you will be punished. If you don’t perform adequately at any task I give you, you will be punished. Now, tell me: do you still want it?”

“Yes, please.”

“You can do better than that. If you want it, you’ll have to convince me.” The collar wasn’t a symbol of force. It would represent how desperately he wanted her to be in control of him. Every time they did this, he would have to convince her. She had fantasized about what that would be like.

He gave her a long, searching look, and then lifted his chin and eased off the couch, on to the floor at her feet. He was so close, and looking right into her eyes. She felt her breath catch; the yearning in his eyes was everything she had hoped to see. “Mariah,” he said, and she remembered how he’d written that her name itself a title, in his eyes. The way he said it now, she believed that. “--please let me wear it.”

This was the truest part of this whole scenario: she owned him because they both wanted it. All her life, she had had to manipulate and manage people. No one had ever just gave of themselves with open hands, not like he did. She owned him the only true way one person could own another: because he wanted it so very much.

Of course he was doing this because it turned him on; she was doing her part for the same reason. It was a game, but it had just enough truth to it. That was what made for a good game.

She wanted more. She wanted to _feel_ his surrender. And make him feel it.

“Beg me for it,” she said, heady with the risk of pushing so hard. The force of the fantasy she had built was strong. It came over her too, a pull deep in her gut that drew her down along with him. “Kiss my feet,” she said, full of daring.

They were close enough that she could see his pupils dilate in response to that. He looked at her a long moment, with so much more going on inside him than she could ever really know. But she could touch his heart, move him. Just as he moved her. He took a small breath, seeming to steel himself, and then bent down in one graceful movement. He kissed the toe of each of her ballet flats, first the right and then the left. “Please, Mariah,” he said, with his head still low to the ground, “I’m begging you.” His voice roughened on the word ‘begging,’ like it was a struggle. After he spoke he continued to hold the position, waiting for her.

Mariah felt dizzy. Hot and bothered, of course. He did that to her. But there was something more too, a shivery thrill that encompassed her whole body. She wanted to wrap her rules all around him, to surround and control him. She wanted to be his whole world, the tyrant of a single subject, as absolute as she was generous.

“Put your head on my knee,” Mariah said softly, once she could control her voice.

He raised his head and rested it on her knee, exposing the vulnerable line of his neck. She stroked her hand over his warm skin, then brought the collar up. She felt him swallow hard as she tightened it, checking the pressure by slipping a finger between his neck and the leather, and then secured the buckle.

It looked so pretty against his throat. Not humiliating, but proud. Noble. Mariah leaned down and kissed the skin just below it. She wanted to use the pet idea now, see how he would react. “That’s it,” she whispered, giving his neck another kiss. “That’s my good boy,” she said, putting all the warmth she felt into it. His whole body shuddered and he moaned, pressing his head against her knee. She felt that right in her belly, the sound of his moan, the press of his lips to her skin. She had done it, she’d found just the right thing for both of them. She spoke her magic words, and the dangerous knight was transformed into her loyal hound. He would rather be at her feet than anywhere else in the world. And she would rather have him than anyone else. She gave them both a while to settle into these feelings, admiring him and softly petting his head and back. He was more than her dog, but this playing pretend touched something real.

As good as that was, once they’d adjusted, Mariah wanted to keep going. There was a lot more here – she hadn’t gotten either of them anywhere near where she wanted to take them. She removed her hands, said: “Look at me.”

He looked so happy she nearly went back to what they were doing. But she had a plan. “Go get the book on my bedside table,” she said. Her instinct was to watch him, but instead she got up to go make herself coffee. She wasn’t going to micromanage every little thing.

She took her time and, when she got back, the book (and her reading glasses, points for initiative) were on the table. He was kneeling in front of the couch, hands folded behind his back and his head bowed. Arousal settled warmly between her thighs. It was beautiful. But something was missing…

“Take off your shirt,” she said, as she sat, sipping her coffee.

He slipped his black t-shirt off over his head smoothly, folded it and set it aside, then returned to his position. She looked over him as if he was a new piece of art for her living room. His arm muscles were looking very nice today. She suspected he was using the position of his arms to tense them, which struck her as very cute. There had been changes in him since she first told him to strip: he was always strong and capable, but she could tell from the look of him that he’d started going for aesthetics as well.

Seeing him there reminded her of the feeling she had in law school, when she first got an apartment of her own. Prior to that there’d been home, which was one long nightmare. And then the annoyance of boarding school and college, where she shared a room with another girl. They weren’t dangerous, but they got on her nerves. Bringing boys in, talking to her when she wanted to be left alone, making trouble. And then law school -- as a reward for her hard work, Mama Mabel paid for her to have her own studio apartment, all to herself.

Mariah decorated it with art prints, cozy rugs, and candles. The bedsheets were Egyptian cotton. There was a large brown leather chair she could study in. She took pleasure in choosing everything, knowing this would be her space to recharge as she fought her way through grad school. But it wasn’t until she closed the door for the first time, flipped the deadbolt, and knew it was all hers, just for her, that she really felt it. There was a joy so intense it almost felt like an ache, deep in her chest. It spread out over her, hot and jittery, from her toes to her fingertips.

That apartment was like an embrace she gave herself. Every day, no matter how hard the day, she could come back to the warmth of that embrace and lock the world out. And that joy was always there for her.

Mariah felt that now again, looking at him. He was so beautiful, and he belonged here, in the home she made for herself. Not a foreign body, not a threat, a perfect complement to the pleasure she surrounded herself with. She wanted to jump his bones and yet she also felt deep comfort in possessing him this way.

The book was the first in Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan Quartet. Mariah pulled on her reading glasses and opened it to the page marker, relaxing back into the couch with a sigh. The desperation and family violence of the world Ferrante depicted reminded Mariah of her own youth, and yet the writing was so beautiful even the sordid became sublime. She let herself get lost in reading.

A while later, she yawned and stretched, glancing at her watch. She’d been at it an hour and a half now. Glancing covertly over at Shades he seemed fine. It was about time to give him something more to do than be a part of her lovely room, though. And she was getting hungry. “There’s a recipe on the kitchen counter,” she said, “go make dinner.” She glanced back down at her watch, calculated. “You have thirty-five minutes.”

He blinked, then nodded slowly and stood. He seemed uncertain. “What are you waiting for?” she asked sharply, and raised her hand, pointing toward the kitchen. “Go.”

He snapped into action, disappearing into the kitchen with enough of his time left. The recipe said twenty-five minutes, and she wanted to give him some leeway to get it right. She wasn’t practiced enough at giving orders like this yet to play it too close to the wire. The point wasn’t punishment tonight, though she had a wooden ruler for that purpose if necessary. The threat had to be have teeth. Given his pain tolerances, using it wouldn’t really count as leaning on pain to make the experience work.

She returned to her book.

When he came out—just a two minutes under the wire, according to her watch—she paused and observed him. He had her dinner, roasted salmon with green beans and herbed potatoes. It was intended to be simple enough to get right. As per her recipe card’s instructions, he had a glass of white wine too. He set them down on the table and knelt.

Mariah looked him over: he seemed fine, but cooking was hot work and it had been several hours now. “Bring me a glass of water,” she said, as she picked up the plate and took a bite. It was, as she had hoped, perfect. After months of living with her, he knew how she liked things. Not too much garlic on the green beans, salmon just moist enough. She grinned down at the food in delight, thoughts of clearing his schedule for a week and having him serve her like this dancing through her head.

When he came back out, she smoothed her expression. As with the food, he set the glass of water down and knelt, waiting.

“Come here,” she said, gesturing to her feet.

He moved closer, looked up at her.

“Are you thirsty?”

There was a glimmer of a smirk on his face, which he quickly concealed; it hadn’t been explicit in her rules, but he seemed to understand that his usual cheekiness wasn’t welcome tonight. “Yes,” he said.

“All right.” Mariah picked up the glass of water, cupped the back of his head and pressed it to his lips. “Drink.”

As she watched him, that sense of joy so intense it almost ached came over her again, and this time there was arousal along with it. She felt the urge to push her skirt up, hook her leg over his shoulder and have him drink her in as desperately as he was taking the water. His head was tilted back, relief in his eyes as his Adam’s apple worked, swallowing. There were droplets on his lips and, as his throat worked faster, some ran down the side of his neck. Mariah tightened her trip on his head in warning. “Slower,” she said. She didn’t want him acting like he had to take as much as he could when he could. He had to trust her to give him what he needed, not work his own angles.

He froze mid-drink, looking at her.

She stroked his head, considered whether she ought to explain herself. No, that was not a good idea at all. “Slower,” she said, “or you’ll be punished.”

He took two more swallows, less greedily this time, and then cut his eyes to her. She pulled the glass away. “Enough?”

He nodded.

Mariah set the glass down and gave him a look. “When I ask a question I expect a reply.”

“Yes,” he said. And, because he wasn’t a fool, he added: “Thank you.”

She ordered him back to his place and leisurely finished her dinner, sipping her wine and watching the TV. After she was finished she toed her shoes off and told him to rub her feet. He was always so good at that. He didn’t fuss around being gentle, he dug his thumb into the ball of her foot and worked it until she felt so good she just wanted to snuggle back into the cushions and fall asleep purring like a cat.

But there were other things to accomplish yet tonight. When he was done she picked up her plate, held it out to him. He took it with a strange expression, expectant but calm. Like the experience of serving her was meditative. She filed away the insight for later. “Well done,” she said.

He smiled and looked proud enough you’d think she’d given him an award rather than a dirty plate.

“Take the empty glasses and go eat your dinner in the kitchen. After you’re done, clean up and wash the dishes.” She looked at her watch. “I want you back in twenty minutes.”That was cutting it close, but his successes needed to feel earned. He would have to eat quickly, probably spending more time on the dishes in case she checked them. It wouldn’t hurt him, though.

She was watching the evening news when he came back. She let him kneel again, pretending not to pay attention to him, before speaking up. “Go draw me a bath,” she said, without looking over a him. “You know how I like it.”

She saw him get up and leave in her peripheral vision. The plan was to ease them both into the rhythm of this thing tonight and hold back pushing it to sex until tomorrow. It seemed to be working; there was a lulling quality to this dynamic, for all that it was stimulating and erotic. Not so lulling as to be _dull_ , of course. When she walked upstairs and found him kneeling beside her perfectly drawn bath, his hands folded behind his back, his posture elegant, the thought of pushing him down on the floor and fucking his brains out nearly overcame her careful plans. It was so warm, the air satiny with moisture, and beautiful; he’d lit candles and turned the lights out.

It would be more fun to play this out, though. Mariah repeated that to herself and then proceeded with her plan, slowly and casually stripping out of her clothes as if he wasn’t even there. She tossed them on the floor near him negligently, caught his moment of confusion in the mirror before he realized and started carefully shaking out and folding each item before rising briefly to put it in the laundry hamper.

Once she was naked she yawned and stretched, enjoying the whole teasing experience. She wasn’t usually on this side of things; she preferred to order him to perform than tease him this way. Not because she was down on her body; she knew plenty of people found it attractive. He certainly did. But watching felt more like power, and she'd learned that she always liked power best. It was fun to change things up, though.

Then she sank into her perfect bath. It was just the temperature she liked - almost too hot, surrounding her in a liquid heat that went deep into her bones. The floating feeling of the water was like heaven, and he’d added the jasmine bath salts she liked. The smell was so good she found herself taking long breaths through her nose just to savor it. She trailed her fingers through the water, envying people who had indoor pools.

The thought from earlier came back and she decided to share it.

“I should cancel your schedule,” she said, leaning back with a sigh, “keep you like this for a whole week. Just—” she closed her eyes, tilted her head back and stroked her hand over her breasts and down to touch herself. “—have you all to myself. Kneeling at my feet...”

When she was planning the evening, she considered touching herself off in front of him. It was a delicious thought, but she wasn’t the exhibitionist in this relationship. She preferred watching to being watched. She wasn’t sure could do it. If she felt too self-conscious, it would be a disaster or she’d have to fake it, which she wasn’t willing to do.

Just now though, saying the words and hearing his breath catch, she felt so very hot and confident and wonderful that she didn’t just know that she could, my god, she _wanted_ to. It was natural to tilt her head back, close her eyes, and touch every place that wanted touching. Scratch the itch she’d been building up all night. And, oh, to know that he couldn’t do the same! He had to kneel there and watch, accepting only what she gave him. There was no thirst he had the right to satisfy himself, not while he was collared.

She owned his every hunger, every need.

The hot pleasure of that power was like the bathwater, warm and liquid all around her. She cupped her breast, sighing and circling her nipple with her thumb, then she trailed her fingers down to her belly and the valley between her thighs. She rested her leg against the side of the tub and stroked her cunt, pushing up against her palm as she cupped and rubbed herself. The urge to feel something inside was yearning in her so she pushed her index and middle finger in, fucking herself and thrusting up into the contact until she tightened around them, clenching and releasing, a light orgasm working its way through her.

As it eased, she smiled, softly stroking herself. She was very proud of herself. It was a performance; her orgasm a lot milder than when she went full out. But it was real too. She’d done it for both of them.

The silence from his corner of the bathroom was as hot as a silence could get. Mariah smile widened. “Feeling thirsty?” she asked, innocently.

There was a pause. “Very,” he said, and she’d never hear someone put so much dark humor into one word.

Mariah laughed. “Go get a bottle of water from the fridge and wait in my room.”

She finished up her bath—the bathing portion, rather than the lewd provocations—then stepped out, pulled the stopper, and blew out the candles. The smell of warm wax and smoke always made her nostalgic; it was a smell that came at the end of something nice. A candlelit dinner, a luxurious bath, birthdays and holidays. And tonight it was coming at the end of something too, the transition between one portion of her plan and the next. She would be taking some risks soon and she almost wished she could just leave it like this. He wouldn’t complain if this was all she had up her sleeve. But she needed a bridge, some truth between here and the flagrant, inflaming vision of him suspended from his wrists in her basement. Somewhere in this softer bondage there was a way to do that right too, a thread of feeling to keep them connected, make it mean something real. Everything she did came from the heart. If she couldn’t find a way to do it like that, she couldn’t go forward. And they both wanted her to bring them safely to that place, for their own mysterious reasons.

Her silk robe was on the back of the door. Mariah pulled it on and stepped out of the warm embrace of the bath into the cool hall. She shivered and sighed, quickened her pace to her room. When she came in she saw him kneeling beside her bed, the bottle of water in front of him. She walked past him, pulled out her purple silk pajamas.

She went and sat on the bed near him. “Come here,” she said, patting her knee. “And bring the bottle.”

He came and rested his head on her knee like before. She opened the bottle of water, petting and soothing him absently as she drank. Soothing herself with his body. It was the strangest, most wonderful thing, to be able to make free with someone else like this. If she needed comfort, she could have it immediately. Everything he had was hers to take. It was so much bigger than sex. Her home was always good because it was entirely under her control. Everything was the way she liked it. Everything was lovely and safe. She could relax. And now he was part of her home, her sphere of safety and control enveloping him. There were so many cracked and torn places inside her and they would never go away, but touching him like this, she felt her thoughts calm. She hoped it calmed him for later too.

“Tilt your head back,” she said, and pressed the bottle to his lips. He drank slow, steady mouthfuls like a good boy, not rushing. She cupped the back of his head, rubbing slow circles with her thumb. There was something primal about controlling this. Being able to provide and decide for someone in something so fundamental. It was a thirst more vital than sex and he let her own that too.

Her plan had included a massage at this point, but she put the thought aside. It was late. She might fall asleep if they did that. Besides, she just wanted to stay like this a while. When he finished drinking, she set the bottle aside, freeing her hands to trace over the warm skin of his back, pausing at his tattoos as she petted him. There was a simple one of a grim reaper on his right shoulder. Clearly prison ink. She knew from memory that there was a Virgin Mary on his forearm and his grandmother’s name below that, sharing an arm with the figure of death. On the other side, his entire upper arm and shoulder was covered in an [elegant design using indigenous Puerto Rican symbolism](http://imgur.com/a/GMbVf). He got that one more recently she could tell. It was done entirely in black ink, but with none of the flaws of his prison ink. At the center, there was the symbol of the _coqui_ and the sun, its face intense. She traced her fingers over it gently, circling the figure with her thumb.

He sighed against her, nuzzled her leg. She left off focusing on one spot and did long, slow strokes from his neck down to his mid-back. He was so beautiful. Ink everywhere and so many scars. History. Pain and courage.

Any one of those scars could have been the end of him. A bullet or a blade. But somehow he’d made it through all of that to her. She wondered what it was like to carry scars on the outside; all hers were hidden. Was there satisfaction in seeing it in the mirror, proof that you had survived?

She kissed his neck, the same spot just below the collar she was coming to love, then she tapped his shoulder. “Up,” she said. He stood. “Follow me,” she said and walked out, not looking back.

She led him down to the basement door, checking her mental list to make sure everything was right. When they got to the door she opened it and headed down the stairs. The overhead light in the portion off to the right that they were using was already on. In the past few weeks she’s come to associate the dry, cool feeling of the space with her careful planning. Being here gave her confidence.

She stopped near the bed and supplies she had arranged, turned back to look at him. The space clearly did not fill him with confidence; his eyes were glued to the pulley system he’d set up and there was a hint of panic in his expression. She looked at him and then frowned.

“No,” she said. “I told you I’d warn you before we did that, and I keep my word. If you continue staring at that like it’s going to bite you I’ll take it as an insult.”

His eyes snapped to her.

Mariah nodded. “This is not that,” she said, “and it is not punishment. I am—“ she chose her words carefully, “putting you away for the night. Now,” she said, sitting down on the bed and raking her eyes over him, “take your clothes off. And be quick about it.”

He took her order seriously, making short work of it. He toed off his shoes and got his socks off, set them aside neatly. Then he pulled off his belt and grey slacks, neatly folded them, and set them on the pile. His boxers were last. When he was done he stood there, wearing nothing but his collar and a hard-on.

He was such a pretty sight, Mariah felt the urge to stop and take a picture. But there was a plan, and she was going to follow it.

“I want you on your hands and knees,” she said, tapping the floor with her slipper-clad foot, “right here.”

He visibly inhaled and then crossed the space, not too fast or two slow, and got down into the position she wanted. It struck her that, for all their months together, she had never seen him in this pose before. It was quite a sight. More animal than anything she had asked of him before. But, then again, that was the point. To take away from him the things he clung to most tightly, and show him it was safe. Because he wanted her to. Because he trusted her to. Still, it was strange, to look at him like this. His eyes were on the floor, his back straight.

Mariah reached for the handcuffs she’d bought. They were the kind with a rubber stabilizer between the two cuffs. Very difficult to break out of. When she did do force, she did it right. She bent down, fastened one side around his right wrist. Before she could order it, he brought his other wrist within reach. She cuffed it and sat back, looking him over. His body was too still, rigid with tension. She stroked a hand over him, from the base of his skull to the small of his back.

This was, to say the least, a risk. Between juvie, Sing Sing, and Seagate, he had spent twenty years of his life bound in equipment like this. She had studied the subject of mass incarceration long enough to know she was playing with fire. This objects were commonplace in his life, but demeaning. Prisoners were made to feel like nothing. Pushed around, sometimes locked in cuffs so tight their hands went numb. Trapped, caged. Systematically abused by guards and other inmates.

She was sure he had perfected the art of fronting strength in those conditions, but this was different. This was her putting him in that position. He couldn’t front with her like that. He had to be good, obedient, open. And he’d wonder if she meant this as a kind of insult. He’d wonder what the change in tenor said about what she wanted next. The long look he’d given the pulley said he had concerns. He had to be tired, exhausted even and aching from having knelt and catered to her wishes all night. Would she return cruelty for good service?

But this wasn’t about that or humiliation. She wasn’t going to hurt him, she was going to take care of him. He had said “fetters” and… Christ, she had looked at so many different kinds. Tormented herself over the choice. But this was important. This was as far as she could go hurting him without physically hurting him. It could be the start of that bridge she needed to create, between where they were and the place she had agreed to take them. A way to show him that she could use these and still not treat him like he was nothing. He would never be nothing to her, no matter what he submitted to. She was showing them both that she could do extreme things to him and still keep them both safe. It was terrifying, though, because she couldn’t be sure it would work for him until she tried.

“Breathe,” she said, leaving her palm pressed against his back until she felt him inhale and exhale. The breath was rough, ragged. “Again,” she said. “Nice and steady.” She kept her hand there for a long minute. As his breathing evened out, the rigid tension eased and she could feel shivers running all over his body. “Good,” she said. “You’re doing very good.” She ran her hands over his back and down to his narrow hips, planting kisses along the way. That went on for a while, until she felt his body finally relax.

Then she reached for the fetters. She watched him closely as she bent down, locked a cuff around his right ankle. As with his wrists, he obediently moved his other ankle within reach. When she had secured him, his body went rigid again, and then he shuddered all over. She kissed the nape of his neck, smoothed her hand over the vulnerable soft fuzz of his hair. There were goosebumps all over his arms and legs. It was cold down here, colder down on the concrete floor. She grabbed the blue chenille throw off the bed and stood. Then she gripped him by the collar with her other hand and pulled, leading him over to the large dog bed she’d purchased for this. His movements were awkward as he struggled to follow, bound the way he was.

When they got there she patted it with her hand. “Lie down.”

He obeyed her and settled down, half curled on his side. His bound arms and legs looked vulnerable and somehow eloquent like this, and his gaze was locked on her, the orders she gave his sole focus. Mariah spread the throw over him, smoothing her hands over the soft warmth of it as she knelt beside him, her knees cushioned by the edge of the pad.

It was nice, for a dog bed. One of the large ones designed for greyhounds, who could be quite delicate. It was thickly padded, and covered in fleece. Large enough to fit him curled on his side. She had actually tried it out herself when it first came, lying down on her side and trying to see the world from the point of view she’d be putting him in. It wasn’t comfortable enough to sleep on all night for her old bones, but it shouldn’t do him any harm. There was a small, radiating space heater nearby that should keep him just fine for the night.

She would take care of him, regardless of what role he was playing. Her lover, her prisoner, her dog… she would always take good care of him. He was never nothing to her. He could surrender everything, let her take everything from him, and still be safe. If they couldn’t believe that now, they couldn’t do more than this. But if they could believe it, maybe anything they wanted could be safe.

Mariah bent down, smoothed her hand over his neck and kissed his head. “You’ve been so good for me,” she said. “I’m very proud of you.”

He opened his mouth, as if he wanted to say something, and then turned his head, nuzzled his face into her palm – kissed and licked it, like he really was her beloved dog. The sensation went straight to her cunt, hot and wet and loving. She had to remind herself firmly that fucking was not part of her plan for tonight. Anyway, what he seemed to need was comfort. She understood why he could take that now in a way he hadn’t been able to when she was binding him; they both knew that she’d treat any dog of hers better than the prison system had treated him. There wasn’t as much to fear there. She stayed there a while, running her hands over him. The warmth of his skin, the softness of the blanket she’d put over him. She tucked it tight and cozy around him.

She leaned down, hugging him and pressing a firm kiss to his cheek before standing. There were things she had to do now. First, the water situation. She walked over to grab a water bottle and a shiny metal dog bowl she’d bought. She set it next to him, poured the water into it. “If you get thirsty, you can drink this.” She wanted him to have privacy the first time he did that; this wasn’t about humiliation. It was about stripping him down and claiming ownership of every single part. And showing him that ownership with her meant protection too, even when she was hurting him.

Next, there was the issue of how he could safeword from down here if he needed to. She reached for the small pre-paid phone she bought just for this and set it near his hands. “If you need anything, call me. My number is the only one programmed into this. In the morning, after you’ve had some water and gone to the bathroom, you’re going to kneel at the base of the stairs and wait for me. You can bring the phone, in case you need to safeword. But, apart from that, you’re not allowed to move from there until I come release you. Do you understand?”

“Yes,” he rasped. Having finally realized that this was goodnight, he rested his head against the pad, looking up at her with naked longing on this face. Like she was the moon and stars.

“Good,” Mariah said, and turned, walking toward the stairs. When she got there, she paused. Imagined being left alone here, bound like that. “When I turn out the light,” she said, her hand resting on the base of the railing, “I want you to think about how good you’ve been tonight. I want you to think about how proud I am of you.” Then she walked up the stairs, clicked out the light, and closed the door.

-

Mariah walked up to her room in a daze. She had been focusing so hard all night. Now that there was nothing to do—unless he safeworded—until the morning, she felt like she’d just finished walking over a tightrope. She was pleased, but all the terror of failure she’d been pushing out of her mind came in like the tide. Anxiety and arousal that made her legs feel weak. When she got back to her room, she sat on the bed, pulled the bedside table drawer open and checked that the keys to his restraints were in there.

She closed it and then opened it again, touched them just to be sure. Before next time, she’d buy a necklace to wear them on so she had them with her at all times. Resolving that gave her a minute’s peace before sudden fear had her reaching for her smartphone too. She checked that the ringer was on twice, then checked the battery strength. 79% dropped to 78% as she stared at it, the bluish light bright in her darkened room.

She set it back down on the table, stood and paced. She couldn’t take a sleeping pill in case he needed her. Maybe another glass of wine… but there was this ache inside her. The desire she had been stoking all night. Satisfying that might just do the trick. She grabbed her vibrator from the dresser drawer she kept it in and got on to the bed with it, arranging herself into the best position, a pillow between her legs. Coming in the bath earlier had been a dainty exercise, as much for show as for herself. But right now, she needed to writhe and gasp and grind her hips against a pillow and get off without caring how she looked.

She slipped her pajama bottoms off, brought a blanket up around her, pulled her panties aside, and pushed the vibe in. She was so wet she didn’t need any lube, her cunt taking the vibe’s satiny girth easily. She worked it against her a little before pressing the button, finding the throbbing setting she liked. She came right away, just from finally having something inside, filling her the way she wanted. The orgasm was light and shallow. She went for another, sensation and feelings swirling together. It wasn’t like her performance in the bath; it wasn’t meant to be pretty. She thought about all the times it could have gone wrong, from her first order to flipping out the light and leaving him down there. She thought about all the ways she could have had him tonight, groaning and panting “fuck, god, _fuck,_ ” as she thrust against the pillow, all the anxiety and stress and powerful longing meeting the unrelenting sensation of the vibrator’s throb. This setting was almost too much. It made her clit feel oversensitized, pleasure edging into discomfort. She rutted against it, not letting up, and came again, her cunt clenching hard and sharp now, contractions that left her gasping, blurred her thoughts into a watercolor mess of emotion and imagery.

He was down there, bound and owned. And she was up here, free but just as owned. He enthralled her, everything about him. The fascinating contours of his feelings for her, the nature of his desire. It was so different and so complementary. They fit together the way she had never believed two people could. She shifted the vibrator to a lower setting and came one more time, with firm, steady thrusts, as she thought about sneaking down there, pushing him onto his back, his bound arms and legs stretched out onto the cold concrete floor, his cock proud and entirely vulnerable. Sinking down on him, kissing his neck, seeing the joy on his face at being wanted and taken. This orgasm was mellower, deeper clenching that went on and on, fading into lighter and lighter aftershocks.

She lied on her back in the bed for a while after that, stroking the end of the vibrator that was still inside her, thinking about tomorrow. Sleepiness was coming over her now and she needed to take advantage of it. She worked the vibe out of her and carried it with her to the bathroom to clean and wash up for bed. When she got back, she checked the keys and her cellphone again, stroking her fingers over them tenderly, more out of a sense of ritual than anxiety. She and Shades were separate, but connected through the rules she had made. She curled up under her blankets, excited about tomorrow.


End file.
